


Concentrate

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 13:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14812694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: He doesn’t usually have trouble concentrating. Between the taint, justice and the demons that tempt all mages he maintains a scrupulously disciplined mind.But Hawke is hurt and his concentration waivers. If he’s going to save her he needs to focus.





	Concentrate

_Concentrate,_ he berated himself.  _Concentrate._

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d said that to himself today, and as the hours ticked by it seemed that he needed the reminder more and more often.

But she’d been gone for hours, and the caves along the Wounded Coast weren’t exactly safe.

_CONCENTRATE,_ Justice boomed in his head, somehow managing to also convey his disappointment and disapproval of Hawke without actually ‘saying’ anything.

_Shut up, Justice,_ he grumbled, also in the relative privacy of his mind.

No matter what the spirit said, how it felt, he couldn’t give her up, not now that he knew she loved him too. He wouldn’t. He’d tried,Maker, how he’d tried, to stay away from her in the beginning. Then her cheery sarcasm and beauty and bravery had slipped beneath his defences before he could notice, and now it was far too late to turn back.

But, for now, he needed to concentrate. On things other than her.

The young boy on his table was being really brave. Anders told him so, reaching into the Fade to pour magic into his broken leg, clearing the infection even as he knitted the bone back together. Within seconds, it was done and the boy was hopping off the table, running straight into his mother’s waiting arms. 

“Thank you,” she mouthed at him over the boy’s head, the grateful look on her face more than enough payment for the task. He smiled back, nodding the universal shorthand for ‘you’re welcome’.

He truly treasured such moments. The gratitude, the feeling that he was actually helping someone. It was the only time, save for when he was with Hawke, that he didn’t feel like a monster. An apostate, an abomination, an agent of vengeance that would one day go too far and destroy everything he loved.

_You are not done. It is not enough_.

It was never enough. Not for Justice. Every child he cured, every mage he helped escape, every wrong he helped right… it would never be enough. Not until…

A blood-soaked creature that just might be Isabela stumbled into the clinic, cutting off his train of thought and freezing him in place.

“What happened?” he asked, shaking himself out of it and speaking only because it stopped him imagining the worst. “Are you hurt?”

She batted his hands away, shifting from one foot to the other.

“I’m fine… It’s… Look, it isn’t my fault. How was I supposed to know there’d be spiders?”

“It’s a cave on the Wounded Coast,” he countered. “Of coursethere were going to be spiders.”

“Right, well….”

“Where is Hawke and how bad is it?” His heart hammered in his chest as he belatedly realised just how much blood she was covered in, and how very uninjured she actually was.

“She’s at the mansion.” There was a guilty tone to her voice. Too guilty, far far too guilty. “And, er…”

He didn’t let her finish, couldn’t let her finish, he just had to be moving. He had to be there _,_ see the... damage for himself. As soon as possible.

But no matter what ailment she had, he couldn’t treat her without supplies, so instead of running  straight towards the secret passageway as pretty much every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to do, he moved towards his medicine cabinet. Or rather, his crumbling medicine box.

As he perused his supplies, he asked Isabela all the usual questions, just as he would for any other patient… How long ago? Poison spiders or cave spiders? Was it just one injury or several? What part of her body? Had she lost consciousness?

… and then he packed absolutely everything he had anyway.

It was only by virtue of his extremely strong will, the kind that could stand up to demons and pass harrowings, that he was able to keep the images out of his head. Images of Hawke covered in her own blood, her beautiful blue eyes bereft of their sparkle, her body torn apart with great gaping holes…

“You’re being almost as broody as Fenris,” Isabela teased, a little strained, as they half-jogged through the passageway.

He almost sighed in relief at the added distraction.

“Please, no-oneis as broody as Fenris. At least I don’t spend my days moping about a dilapidated mansion.”

“Oh no. A dilapidated shack in Darktown is so much better.”

“Hey,” he replied, feigning offence. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is, Anders. Trust me. It really is.”

They didn’t stop, either moving or joking, until they reached the top floor of the manor, where they found Bodan anxiously wringing his hands just outside Hawke’s room.

“Thank goodness you’re here, messere.” He sounded thoroughly panicked, but then again, Bodan panicked about almost everything, so it wasn’t necessarily a cause for concern. “I told her it was too dangerous sir, I said…”

“Not now, Bodan,” Isabela interrupted, not unkindly, but Anders blasted straight past him and into Hawke’s bedroom…

… stopping cold the second he walked through the door, utterly unable to process what he was seeing.

“Hello there, handsome.” Her voice was weak but coloured with her usual humour.

But he didn’t reply, couldn’t, because his attention was entirely taken up by the three inch spider fang sticking out of her abdomen. Even Justice was thunderously quiet in his head at the sight.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” she continued, nonchalant. “I’ve had far worse… far far worse, actually.”

“Hawke…” The word came out as a strained gasp.

In the space of a heartbeat, her humour faded and her expression morphed into one of gentle concern. Ha! She was concerned about him? The notion was so ridiculous, given the circumstances, that he almost wanted to laugh.

“I’m all right, Anders.” Her voice was gentle now. “Really. Apart from the… fang and the pain. But see? I didn’t take it out this time. Proof that I do actually listen when you talk about healing.”

Healing. Right. She needed that and it wasn’t like he hadn’t had to save her before. With her almost singular determination to insert herself into everyone’s business it was frankly a miracle that he’d had to tend to her as few times as he had.

But this time was different. Now that she was his, it was different.

Except it couldn’t be, not if he wanted to save her.

She was just another patient.  Any other patient. No-one particularly special or important just… another life he had to save. 

“Yes,” he replied, forcing the sarcasm into his tone. “Well done on not killing yourself after being stabbed.”

He crossed the room towards her, refusing to focus on the blood staining her sheets or the fact that her skin was more than just a shade too pale. Instead, he forced himself to look only at the wound.

In all actuality, now that he was able to examine it properly, it didn’t look that bad. The fang was only buried perhaps two inches deep and most of the blood covering her could not be her own. There wasn’t any sign of poison either. All in all, it could have been a lot worse.

But his hands were still shaking as he searched for the healing salve amongst his things, and they shook even worse as he attempted to apply it.  _Concentrate._

Her fingers wrapped themselves around his with a strength that was surprising considering the circumstances.

“You can do this.” Her tone brooked no argument, her faith in him shined through her eyes.

She trusted him so much that it almost physically hurt. He couldn’t let her down.  _Concentrate_ , he reminded himself again, trying to pretend that squeezing her hand in return was enough for the moment as he prepared for what was to come.

“This is going to hurt,” he warned her, waiting for her nod before reaching into the Fade with one hand and pulling the fang out with the other. She omitted one half-scream, half-grunt of pain and it was all he could do to keep his mind on the magic and not look.

_Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate._

And then, mercifully, he was done and she was sitting up in her blood-soaked sheets like nothing had happened at all.

“Hawke. You all right?” Isabela asked from the doorway.

“Of course, I’m all right,” she replied, before he could argue. “But that’s the last time I follow you on a wild goose chase.”

“Fair point,” the pirate queen conceded. “Meet at the Hanged Man later? I’m buying.”

“She needs rest,” he interjected before Hawke could agree, but of course, Isabela paid him no mind at all, her gaze automatically slipping past him to Hawke.

His love shook her head, allowing him to finally breathe for the first time since Isabela had entered his clinic. “I’d better not. Besides he gets all dominant and sexy when he’s concerned.”

Isabella’s expression turned sly in a way that he was entirely too familiar with. Dear Maker, his nerves couldn’t take this.

“Then I’ll leave you to it. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” she trilled, turning to leave.

“Well, that doesn’t rule out much,” he muttered under his breath.

“I heard that!” she shouted from the stairs.

He waited until he heard the front door close behind her before reaching out and wrapping his fingers around Hawke’s.

“You really should rest,” he mumbled, squeezing her hand as hard as he dared, given her condition. He prepared for her to disagree, to protest, to argue, but she surprised him once again.

“I’ll rest if you stay.”

Her voice was quiet and already slightly sleepy, a common side effect of the salve. But, when he finally looked at her he found her eyes wide open and staring into his.

He shouldn’t stay.

He had a thousand things to do and probably an endless line of patients at the clinic, and he could already hear Justice complaining in the back of his mind.  But her eyes spoke a plea that was too eloquent to resist, and he found himself stripping away his outer layers and crawling into the bed beside her before he could even begin to properly talk himself out of it.

The peace he felt when her warm, alive, lithe, little form curled up against him and instantly fell asleep on his chest was indescribable. He didn’t deserve this, he shouldn’t want it, but he would take it nonetheless. This one thing, this one peace, he would have and, if he had to, he would defend it with his life.

Even if it was surely to be short-lived.

 


End file.
